


Chance Encounters

by TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bromance, Canon Typical Violence, Comic Season 10, Crossover, Language, Mark of Cain, One-Shot, Season 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 03:24:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10845489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG/pseuds/TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG
Summary: Dean bonds with a stranger.





	Chance Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> What with the 20th anniversary of Buffy and Purgatory 3 looming, both these shows have been on my mind a lot lately. So here, have this.

It _hurts_.

Dean Winchester knows pain. He knows what it feels like to be shot, stabbed, sliced to ribbons every day for what felt like an eternity. He knows emotional pain, having buried one person after the other that was important to him, right from the ripe old age of four. He buried his mother, father, his brother more times than he cares to think about, friends and lovers.

But nothing ever hurt the way the Mark does, the way it pulls and pushes at him, how it wants him to let go, to _hunt_ and _kill_ and _slash_ and...

“Can I buy you a drink?”

Dean looks up from his shot glass. The guy leaning on the bar next to him looks like a Billy Idol cosplayer, from the top of his bleached blond head to the bottoms of his scuffed Doc Martens, and he speaks with an accent that makes Dean think of heated debates about soccer and drunken bar fights.

“No, thanks. No offence but you’re not exactly my type.” He gives a tired grin that doesn’t reach his eyes.

The other smirks, something that is a strange combination of pout and grin. “Oh, I wasn’t offering.” He leans against the stool behind him, patting down the pockets of his coat until he finds the packet of cigarettes he was looking for. He waves it in Dean’s direction. “You just look like you need to talk to someone.”

Dean huffs a laugh as he picks up his glass. “Story of my life.” He knocks back the shot and before he has a chance to set it down again, the other man motions at the bartender for another. “Look, man, you really don’t need to.”

The blonde pulls a cigarette from the pack and lets it dangle, unlit, between his lips. It bounces when he speaks. “I don’t _need_ to do a lot of things. But I want to.” He holds out his hand. “Name’s Spike.”

Dean looks at the extended hand dubiously for a moment before deciding, what the hell. “Dean.”

They shake hands, and Spike motions at the bartender again after he lights his cigarette. “Another of that poor excuse for a beer, if you’d be so kind, love.” The bartender just rolls her eyes as she points at the No Smoking sign, and Spike blows a smoke ring and gives her a wide grin. Dean smirks. If he wasn’t in such a black mood, he’d like this guy. Spike flicks some ash into the ashtray on the bar before turning back to Dean. “So. What ails you?”

Dean shrugs as the bartender puts a fresh glass in front of him. “Family trouble, I suppose. My brother and I...” He falls silent because just thinking about Sam makes the Mark pulse, and he picks up his glass instead.

“Fighting over a girl?” The bartender reappears with his beer and Spike gives her a charming smile. She rolls her eyes again as she walks away.

Dean snorts a laugh. “Ha. I wish.” There are water rings on the bar from where people didn’t use the coasters. Dean counts them until the silence becomes too awkward. “It’s… complicated.”

“Isn’t it always?” Spike snickers good-naturedly before taking a drink. He makes a face as he puts the glass back on the bar. “Just like sex in a canoe.”

“Fucking close to water.”

Spike laughs, and Dean has to smile. It’s nice to just make stupid jokes again. “Exactly. Completely beyond me how anybody could think to call this beer.” He settles more securely on the stool. “So. Your brother. Younger?”

Dean nods. “There’s… something we need to do.” He swallows heavily. “Something _I_ need to do.”

Spike is watching him, hand wrapped around his glass. “And it would drive him away.”

He barks a harsh laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.” He lets his eyes wander through the bar, over the other patrons, and the Mark nearly _vibrates_ as he spots them.

Fangs, two of them, doing their best to chat up some girls, and it looks way too much like they’ll be successful. The girls, one tall and blond and definitely more than just a little tipsy, one short and slightly pudgy and drunk out of her mind, are giggling and leaning against the two men, and Dean stiffens.

Spike clears his throat. “You gonna intervene?”

Dean picks up his glass, looks at Spike from the corner of his eye. “None of my business.” He knocks back the shot, and Spike chuckles.

“Yeah, like you’re not itching to bash some faces in.”

“Look, I don’t know what you think you might know about me but...”

Spike holds up a hand and points behind Dean. He doesn’t want to look but he doesn’t have to anyway, he knows what he’ll see when he turns around. Spike smirks. “Are you really leaving those sweet maidens to their destiny?”

Dean rolls his eyes because of course Spike is right. “Whatever.” He throws some bills on the bar and rises. Spike follows suit and it’s Dean’s turn to hold up his hand. “I can handle this.”

The blond cocks an eyebrow as he slides of his stool. “Two against one? Yeah, those are some bloody _fantastic_ odds.” He rolls his shoulders, bouncing on the soles of his feet. “Come on, there’s some lovely ladies in need of our assistance.”

Before Dean can protest further, Spike is walking towards the exit, hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans, and Dean has little choice but to follow. Fucking civilians.

Spike is waiting for him outside, head cocked to his right. “Our friends went that way.”

Dean frowns, then crouches to retrieve the machete strapped to his leg. He holds it out for Spike. “Here. You’re gonna need this.”

Spike raises his eyebrows, making no move to take the offered weapon. “Aren’t you the boy scout.” He waves the machete away. “I’m good. Let’s go.” He practically skips towards the alley on their right, and Dean curses under his breath.

“God damn it, wait! You don’t know...”

A scream, and instinct takes over, and Dean runs into the alley, Spike hot on his heels. The fangs have cornered the girls and don’t notice him or Spike until the blond just throws himself at one of them, knocking him off his feet. Dean grabs the other one and pulls him away from the girl, shoving him against the chain link fence. The girls stare at them with wide eyes, and Dean motions at the end of the alley. “Get out of here! Now!” They stay in place, frozen in fear, and he grabs the short one’s hand. “ _Go_!”

The command in his voice shakes them from their stupor, and the short one grabs her friend and pulls her along, out of the alley. Dean has no chance to look after them because the vamp he pulled off of them knocks into him, and he is thrown off his feet.

It takes Dean a while to realise that Spike fights like a force of nature. He throws himself into it with an almost child-like glee, using nothing but his fists. Dean is sort of distracted by the vamp trying to wrench his arm from its socket but he realises that Spike and the vamp he’s fighting are much too evenly matched. It makes cold dread spread in his gut.

He finally manages to free his arm and swings around, the machete taking off the vamp’s head in one clean motion. Dean stands, panting, for a moment, until there’s a shriek behind him. He turns to find Spike grinning like a maniac, bouncing on his feet a yard from where he’s impaled his vamp on a protruding piece of metal. The vampire struggles, face twisted in pain and rage, and Spike gives a little bow and motions at it. There’s blood running down his cheek from where the vamp caught him, and it turns his grin into something terrifying. “Care to do the honours?”

Dean nods stiffly and moves closer as the vampire snarls at him. The cut sprays blood on his shirt, and the machete trembles in his hand, the Mark pulsing, as if it senses that there’s more. It wants him to keep going, to take off Spike’s head and then that of whichever poor sucker stumbles into his path next.

He takes a deep breath and steps back, away from Spike.

The blonde is still grinning when he takes the hem of his t-shirt and pulls it up, revealing a flat, pale stomach as he wipes the blood off his cheek. A stomach that looks much _too_ pale. As if it hasn’t seen the sun in years. Maybe decades.

Dean’s grip on the machete tightens.

Spike straightens, rolling his shoulders. “Nothing like some good old-fashioned fisticuffs to get the blood pumping.”

“Yeah, speaking of blood.” Dean widens his stance, readying himself for the attack he’s certain will come. “What are you?”

The other watches him for a moment, then he smiles. “Wondered how long it’d take you to figure it out.” He reaches into his coat pocket and Dean stiffens, relaxing only minutely when Spike doesn’t pull out a weapon but his pack of cigarettes. He lights one and takes a long drag, more or less ignoring Dean. When he exhales, he turns back to him. “Well, I’m not exactly _human_ if that’s what you’re wondering.” He points at the decapitated vampire with his cigarette. “I’m like him. Mostly. Different breed.” He smirks. “ _Vastly_ superior, if you ask me.”

Dean’s pulse jumps. “What do you mean, different breed?”

Something happens to Spike’s face. His eyes change colour to a bright gold, his forehead becomes ridged, and he smirks, exposing fangs that look more like the traditional ones seen in bad movies. He tilts his head to the side. “Never seen this before, have you?”

Dean doesn’t scare easy. 31 years of living with the supernatural will do that to a person. But this _definitely_ spooks him.

Spike’s face changes back and he takes another drag of the cigarette. “You’re Dean Winchester. I hear you’ve been having some trouble with demons.”

Dean scoffs. “What, are you a good vampire or something? Wanna help me?”

“Sorta.” Spike leans back against the fence, motioning at himself with the burning cigarette. “Got myself my soul back a couple of years ago. My kind, we usually don’t have one.” He smirks, and Dean recognises the bitterness in it. “Saved the world.”

“Yeah, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Several of them.”

The vampire – and god fucking damn it, why is it _always_ vampires? - laughs and stuffs his pack of cigarettes back into his coat pocket. “So I’ve heard.” He studies Dean for a long moment, and Dean shifts his stance. “The people I work with… They sent me to find you.”

Dean scoffs. “That doesn’t sound ominous at all. Thanks, I’ll pass.”

“You’re all about that saving the world shtick, aren’t you?” Spike’s tone is mocking but Dean can see the manipulation behind his words. “You should meet with my people. With their… _leader_.” He sneers a little. “I think she’d like you.” And now there’s no manipulation at all. A lot of pain, though, and Dean allows himself to relax, just a little. He also doesn’t miss the way Spike’s eyes travel over his body, the sardonic tilt to his smile when he says, “Yeah, she’d definitely like you.” 

“That leader… She your ex?”

Spike drops his cigarette on the ground and crushes it beneath the heel of his boot before looking up at Dean. He wears that weird pouty smirk again but there’s something in his eyes that makes the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stand up. “You’re sharper than people give you credit for.” He pushes himself off of the fence and Dean tenses again. Spike watches him, still smirking, before he turns around and walks away, back towards the bar. He seems almost dismissive of Dean until he throws, “You should come to California,” over his shoulder.

Dean frowns. “What’s in California?”

The vampire stops and whirls around at the end of the alley, his coat flying, and Dean has to admit it all looks rather dramatic. Well rehearsed. His smirk is wider than ever and man, you could cut yourself on those cheekbones. “Oh, nothing. Just the Slayer.”

There’s a calculating look in his eyes, and Dean feels rather stupid. And _intrigued_. “What’s a Slayer?”

The END


End file.
